Y2K- Hoax of the Century

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"There has yet to be an apology from the Y2K "experts" for starting the
hoax and keeping it alive."
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Remember Y2K? Hard
to believe it, but just a
year ago, everyone from
the U.S. government to
BusinessWeek was
terrified that we were
about to approach a
technological
Armageddon that many
believed would herald
the end of the world as
we know it. We now
know that the Y2K
disaster scenario was, in
fact, a hoax.

Don't get
me
wrong.
The
Y2K
glitch
was real
and
there
were
some
programs
that
might
not have
functioned perfectly if
the glitch wasn't fixed.
But despite all the
brouhaha, there was little
likelihood that the Y2K
glitch would have a
significant impact on
anything other than a
few irate customers. We
know this because the
new millennium began
without any significant
computer-related
problems, even in
countries like Russia,
Bulgaria and Vietnam,
where next to nothing
was spent on the
problem.

The supposed massive
impact wasn't just a
hoax, it was an
expensive hoax. John
Gantz, chief research
officer at Framingham,
Mass.-based
International Data
Corp., estimates at least
$70 billion was wasted
on Y2K work that
wasn't really necessary.

That estimate, however,
doesn't take into account
the money spent by
frightened citizens on
"Y2K preparedness,"
some of whom sold
everything they owned
and headed for the hills.
And then there was the
extra government
expense, which included
$50 million to create a
Y2K "crisis center."

Where it started

Where did the hoax
originate? While Y2K
glitch worries had been
bouncing around the
industry for a decade or
so, the supposed
problem was thrown into
the public eye when the
Gartner Group
published a news release
in the mid-1990s
describing the supposed
"dangers" of the Y2K
glitch, predicting that it
would cost $300 billion
to $600 billion to fix it.

These figures were
obviously based upon
pure guesswork (give or
take $300 billion?), but
that didn't keep the
Gartner Group and other
firms from building an
entire business selling
"information" about the
hazards of Y2K.

Like its colleague
companies, the Gartner
Group is widely quoted
in the media as an
"authority" on high-tech
matters. But anybody
who has ever worked
with these market
research companies
knows the quality of
research frequently is
questionable and the
opinions in the reports
are often tailored to
excite computer vendors
into buying pricey
reports.

The "expert" status of
the Gartner Group put it
in an excellent position to
capitalize on the growing
interest in the Y2K issue.
Leading the charge at the
Gartner Group was Vice
President Lou
Marcoccio, a
Massachusetts resident
who was quoted
frequently on the subject
and even was called
down to Washington,
D.C., to present expert
testimony to the U.S.
Special Committee on
the Year 2000
Technology Problem.

During that presentation,
he outlined the dangers
of Y2K and even
predicted that 1999 was
supposed to be marked
by "fiscal year system
failures" (which occur
for companies that have
an early fiscal year ahead
of the calendar year).

When the fiscal year
failures didn't happen in
1999, I called Marcoccio
to ask why other
analysts were beginning
to question Gartner
Group's numbers.
Despite repeated
requests for an
interview, he refused to
return my calls.

Another local Y2K
monger, Capers Jones,
chairman of Burlington,
Mass.-based Software
Productivity Research,
was willing to talk to me,
however. It was Jones
who popularized the
notion that Y2K
eventually would cost
$3.2 trillion, based in
part upon his belief that
there would be $1 trillion
in lawsuits as a result of
Y2K failures.

There were many more key people who "blew the whistle" on Y2K and got
companies to act making their systems Y2K compliant. I find it odd
that the author only "blamed" (read 'credited') two Massachusetts
people. I would give more credit to Ed Yourdon, the Westergaard
Y2KTimebomb website authors, and Y2Knewswire.

What are you talking? I spent two years reading every Y2K Statement
from everybody from my own organization to I.R.S. to the Electrical
Engineers, everybody and his brother,I read. They were all "duh", no
wonder I prepared. Haven't had to buy toilet paper for two years.
Always hated that t.p. took up most of the basket. It was my
experience, I lived it, I read their stupid concerns. And took them
to heart, because they were too stupid to fit a puzzle. Or actually
talk to each other. Some have never experienced the life experience
of being "money poor", never visited an Out-house, they could not
phantom any idea of a life style being less than a bunch of ticky
tacky houses, all in a row, in an expensive neighborhood, with deed
restrictions on the size of your storage unit.

What Y2K, Isn't gas still under a dollar. electricity and fuel for
home heating and industrial applications the cheepest in history?
There are no problems at refineries, wells and pipelines. Arn't The
companys who make and use microchips making record profits? people
are voting with their feet to support these companies by the millions
and millions. people are innovating at a record level with the
fastest, safest, simplest, most reliable technology known to man.
Banks who are using this safe and reliable technology haven't suffered
losses, and their futures are so rosey that the whole country is
running to them with there investment dollars. Sure January 1 was not
an orgasm, but it's still groaning and will be for years.

Everyone is looking at Y2K from the wrong angle. To understand it,
we must focus on the Y2K influence that caused changes "outside" of
technical difficulties. Here's how I came to my conclusion.

First, I, like many of you, read thousands and thousands of pages of
reports from every conceivable source. I was convinced that Y2K was
going to have a great impact on the markets, the infrastructure in
the US and particularly (maybe even devastating effects on emerging
nation infrastructure). When nothing happened, I knew there was NO
WAY that our government and all those huge multi-national
corporations had made some joint 600 Billion (with a B) dollar
mistake AND, there was NO WAY they all worked so hard and so
diligently that they took care of ALL the problems they claimed
existed. That left two possibilities

1) They are all gullible morons OR 2)the corporate powers and the
government powers combined efforts to hoodwink us into thinking Y2K
was a much larger event then it really was. But why would they do
that? For computer contracts and Spam sales? Hardly. There's a much
more frightening explanation than that.

It was a shock when I realize that it was more than just "us" they
were trying to convince about Y2K dangers. It was the emerging
nations, our allies AND members of Congress. I might add, that it
was extremely convenient that "right wing wackos" with a tendency to
stockpile Spam (at least that's how the media portrayed us) took it
so seriously, because it allowed the spinmeisters the ammunition to
launch a PR campaign that would inspire the millions of "joe and jane
schmoes" to disassociate from the subject, thus remaining comfortably
ignorant.

Next, I asked myself..."so what did happen?" and the answer was most
interesting. (I wrote this in January of 2000 and added a few updated
sentence for this post)

Was Y2K some big mistake? Did the governments and corporations of
the world really spend 600 billion dollars on a lark? Were the CIA,
FBI, UN, Navy, National Guard, IMF, World Bank and a host of others
really "dead wrong" when then warned of major infrastructure
breakdowns and possible rioting?

OR..................

Was Y2K a scare tactic that induced our Congress to spend billions of
dollars on militarizing our civilian infrastructure? Was the Y2K
scare used to bamboozle Congress into passing laws based on the false
assumption that a concrete deadline required immediate action?

Lastly, did the Y2K scare also bamboozle emerging nations and some of
our allies into letting us "help" them by sending in expert
engineering teams to work on their infrastructure? With regard to
this last item, it is interesting to note, that after the anti-
climatic rollover, John Koskinen made this statement
(paraphrased). "Y2K, did do ONE good thing for us, it allowed us to
map out a complete blueprint of the infrastructures in all the
emerging nations". Hmmmm, I thought...."that's a tidy bit of
information to possess".

Now, bear in mind that countries like Iraq and Libya who didn't
trust us enough to let our mapping teams (I mean remediation teams)
in, along with countries like China and Japan that have very large
technology systems and did virtually no Y2K preparation, had no more
problems than the US and it's expensively and extensively-remediated
friends. How could that be?

For a clue...fast-forward to two months ago...President Chavez from
Venezuela (who is not considered a friend to the US), slipped off to
Iraq to meet personally with Saddam about an oil deal. Needless to
say, the White House and State Department were ticked off big time.
The day after Chavez returned back, and during his Presidential
Inauguration speech, over 70%of the power mysteriously went out in
Venezuela, leaving Chavez stranded in the dark. Since when do entire
countries go out with no storm or war presence involved? And what
exquisite timing... during the inauguration speech. A message to
Chavez? Perhaps. There has been one other strange power outage too.
Prior to Venezuela, Taiwan had a major, unexplained power outage,
just at the time the Clinton Administration was switching alliances
to the mainland and Taiwan was clamoring about independence.
Coincidence? Perhaps.

What other effects did Y2K have? The answer is...many major changes
to legislation.

And, why were all these new laws implemented? We were told we needed
them ...

1. So the police forces would be heavily armed and trained to
prevent major riots during power outages.
LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: A much more militant Police Force, which, now
uses black, riot uniforms, more potent tear gas, rubber bullets, and
in some locations, armored vehicles now exists.

2. So the military could come to the aid of the police forces
(bypasses Posse Comitatus Act)

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Military can be called in for use against the
civilian population when major rioting occurs, or terrorism or drug
dealing is suspected. Prior to this change, our laws specifically
prohibited the use of the military against our citizens (and for very
good reason).

3. So money could be allocated to refurbish nuclear bunkers in
case riots or terrorist attacks required government leaders need
someplace to hide. And, to allocate over 50 million dollars for "the
main" communications bunker in Washington, DC. (Note: Although it was
reported that every major city built or refurbished a bunker, not
one cent was spent on protective structures for the public).
LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Members of government will be protected, in case
of major rioting, terrorist attack or war.

4. So money could be allocated at the State and local level to
train emergency personnel from the police departments, fire
departments, hospitals, National Guard, Red Cross and other agencies
in how to respond to chemical and biological attack. These multi-
agency mock attacks were practiced in secret all over the country.
Participants were told they could not reveal information about the
practices for “national security reasons”. (Note: no information was
disseminated to the general public informing them of what to do in
these emergencies)

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Federal and local agencies are trained for
chemical and/or biological attack or war.

5. To form a “Secret Infrastructure Protection Committee”, which
includes top officials from the government and major US
corporations.

6. To protect banks, power, gas and water companies,
telecommunications companies and chemical companies from having to
disclose the truth. Terrorists or hackers might take advantage of the
vulnerable situation Y2K (was supposed to) put us in.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Many industries are now shrouded in secrecy and
protected from disclosing the truth about dangers they may pose to
our economy, health and environment.

7. To legally discourage an employee in an Infrastructure
related Industry and/or the chemical industry to disclose damaging
information about that industry. And, to do the same with the media.
Everyone was expected to remain silent for “national security”
reasons since Y2K would make us so very vulnerable.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Employees in infrastructure related industries
and the media are legally discouraged from telling the truth and in
fact, can be jailed for disclosing vulnerabilities and discrepancies.
This law alone, protected the truth from ever coming out of the
industries involved.

8. To allocate huge amounts of money for military expenditures
such as a state-of-the-art, military telecommunications system that
would bypass current systems should they be taken off line by
outages, or terrorists, or war. To provide for a plan where the
military, via this system, is directly linked to industries that
uphold our infrastructure.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: The US military can now communicate with all
units of the National Guard and keep control of infrastructure
related industries if the US was under siege either from riots,
terrorist’s attacks or war. Only the public would be in the dark.

9. To create International teams of specialists that would be
ready to descend upon an infrastructure-compromised country....”to
help them out”.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Teams of “international” specialist were
deployed to countries to help them remediate their Y2K problems.
Other, more military teams, were put on call in case such a country
was under siege either from y2K-related riots, terrorist attack or
war.

10. To allow hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the United
States to help solve the computer code problems. (Note that this
initiative was rushed through so fast that it was later disclosed
that many immigrants allowed into the US did NOT have background
checks)

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: Possible terrorist-connected entries into US
exactly at a time when we were passing emergency legislation to
reduce our vulnerability to terrorism.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: The US becomes more “internationalized”. There
are more voters for Democrats.

11. To empower FEMA with legislative backing, money and materials
enough to oversee the control of the United States in case of black
out induced catastrophe. (Note: many people are critical of the
secrecy that is prevalent in the FEMA organization)

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: FEMA now has the power to take total control of
the United States public infrastructure under “emergency conditions”
including: massive riots, terrorist’s attack, war or natural
disaster)

12. To justify the issuance of an extra $50 billion dollars into
the United States monetary system. Fifty billion dollars that was
never removed from the system when it was clear Y2K was a non-event.

LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: The stock market was bolstered making the
economy appear far more stable then economic fundamentals portrayed.
This added liquidity has, in turn, increased the instability of the
markets to a point where a severe crash and recession are more likely
than ever. (and in the process right now)

13. To justify many more potentially restrictive Executive Orders
that would put all of the above in motion.
LEGISLATIVE IMPACT: The person holding the position of “United
States President” now has the power to suspend the Constitution,
nationalize all industry, confiscate all property, and direct the
military WITHOUT input from Congress, simply by declaring a “national
emergency”.

NOTE: During the Y2K preparation scare, Congress was lobbied by
concerned citizen groups, to “top off” the Strategic Petroleum
Reserve and to make sure that fuel companies were prepared for the
uncertain outcome of the rollover. It is interesting to note that
four weeks after the rollover, the United States had the lowest level
of petroleum and natural gas reserves in 10 years. Furthermore,
petroleum imports were reduced by 26% between 1/01/2000 and
1/31/2000. This reduction is far greater than any cutbacks that may
have affected us through OPEC’s reduced production policy. If
government and big business REALLY believed Y2K was a threat, why did
they “reduce” rather than “increase” our oil and gas supplies? And,
why did they lie?

As an added note, it is clear now, in December of 2000, that the
energy crisis in oil and natural gas is real. Furthermore, rather
than have those "extra" Y2K stockpiles, we are depleting our SPR to
frighteningly low levels just at a time when the world is a
particularly vulnerable position.

Perhaps it’s time the American people asked,
“What is going on?”

Personally, in looking around the globe and monitoring events, I
believe Y2K was subversive preparation for a coming war. And, that
not everyone in our government is...shall we say...on our side.

A friend who worked on a y2k remediation effort for a large
insurance company suggested that while y2k preps might be
prudent, the real thing to prepare for is what our civilization
has done to the biosphere.

Here in a certain area of the Pacific Northwest, we are
almost one foot low in rainfall for year 2000. November
was probably the driest in decades. Meanwhile, George W.
denies that climate change is underway and Gore's negotiators
for the Kyoto treaty want a result that doesn't require
the US to do a damn thing. (Don't blame me, I voted for Nader.)

I'm glad to have a well powered by renewable energy. In 2020,
that will be a luxury more valuable than an SUV powered by
depleting supplies of petroleum.

Meg Davis's comments are interesting -- her point about
the militarization snuck through under the guise of y2k is
intriguing.

Meg, would you kindly point us to the specific new laws/legislation
that you refer to above with reference numbers or web links if
possible . It would be very helpful when passing this information on
to other people.

Experts Puzzled by Scarcity of Y2K Failures

By BARNABY J. FEDER

Whether it is with scorn, anger or resignation, most computer experts
and Year 2000 program managers brush off suggestions that they
overreacted to the Y2K threat, taken in by computer companies and
consultants positioned to profit from fear.

Still, like the skeptics, many wonder: How did countries that started
so late -- and appeared to do so little -- manage to enter 2000 as
smoothly as nations like the United States and Britain that got an
early jump?

"That question is plaguing all of us, although some people won't
admit it," said Maggie Parent, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's
representative to Global 2000, an international banking group formed
to coordinate and stimulate Year 2000 work. "We expected there to be
some significant blowouts."

A World Bank survey published last January concluded that just 54 of
139 developing countries had national Year 2000 programs outlined and
only 21 were actually taking concrete steps to prepare.

Japan, China, Italy and Venezuela showed up as high-profile question
marks in various studies. Paraguay's Year 2000 coordinator was quoted
last summer saying the country would experience so many disruptions
its government would have to impose martial law. Russia, Ukraine,
Belarus and Moldova were seen as so risky that the State Department
issued travel advisories in November and called nonessential
personnel home over New Year's.

So what accounts for the surprisingly quiet rollover? Computer
experts cite several factors. Even they may have underestimated how
hard many countries worked in the last few months, when the problems
were better understood, and how much help came from others that
started early. And in many cases, assessments of overseas readiness
were based on scarce or vague data.

But the simplest if most embarrassing explanation is that the some
public and private analysts who testified before Congress and were
widely quoted overestimated the world's dependence on computer
technology. Most countries had much less to do to prepare because
they are far less computerized than the United States. The computers
they do have are much less likely to be tied together in complex
systems and are often so old that they run much simpler software,
according to Louis Marcoccio, Year 2000 research director for the
Gartner Group, a technology consulting firm.

At a briefing last week on why Pentagon analysts overestimated the
risks in many countries, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre said,
"If we had a failing, it may be that we extrapolated to the rest of
the world the kind of business practices that we have developed
here."

Once adjustments are made for technology dependence, some analysts
say, the investment of the United States and other pacesetters in
Year 2000 preparations was not that far out of line with those that
started late. But the figures from many countries are so unreliable
that it is hard to be sure. Russia, for example, is estimated to have
spent anywhere from $200 million to $1 billion.

Mr. Marcoccio suspects the lower figures are closest to the truth but
he adds that based on the government's estimate that the United
States spent $100 billion, "If Russia spent $400 million, they spent
proportionally more than the United States, because the United States
is 300 times more reliant on computers."

Such assessments lead down a pathway that only a statistician could
love. Use Gartner's estimate that the United States spent $150
billion to $225 billion, and the comparable Russia investment jumps
to a minimum of $500 million. Tamper with Gartner's guess that the
United States is 300 times as computer-dependent, and figures dance
another direction.

But nearly everyone agrees that the figures for the United States
include substantial sums toward preparations abroad by American
multinationals. Motorola said its $225 million Year 2000 budget
included not just repairs at its overseas factories but, for example,
helping its Asian suppliers pinpoint potential Year 2000 flaws. It
also paid overtime for support that helped paging and radio networks
in Italy function flawlessly over New Year's.

The federal government picked up part of the tab for foreign nations.
To jump-start lagging nations, the government paid for many of them
to send representatives to the first United Nations meeting on Year
2000 in late 1998. It distributed hundreds of thousands of CD's in 10
languages providing background and suggestions for how to organize
Year 2000 projects. More recently, the Defense Department provided $8
million to set up a joint observation post in Colorado as insurance
against miscommunication that could lead to missiles' being launched.

"We got a lot of free consulting from the United States and agencies
like the Inter-American Development Bank," said Rodrigo Martin, a
Chilean who headed a regional Year 2000 committee in South America.

Such aid played a bigger role in helping late starters to catch up
than most people realize, some computer experts say. As John
Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000
Conversion, sees it, hype about the magnitude of the problem misled
fewer people than hype about the impossibility of getting it fixed.

"This was a process that could move faster than the preparedness
surveys," Mr. Koskinen said, noting that alarming press releases and
testimony frequently relied on research that was obsolete within
weeks.

Del Clark, who led the Year 2000 program at Phillips Petroleum,
concurred, saying: "China was the big question mark for us. Part of
what happened was that they were working hard late in 1999 and the
status information was out of date."

It helped that repair efforts became less expensive toward the end
because of the experience gained by those who did the work early and
the tools developed for them, according to Brian Robbins, senior vice
president in charge of the Year 2000 project at Chase. In addition,
Mr. Robbins said, it turned out that some countries like Italy had
done more work than reported.

By 1998, the pacesetters were far enough along for a sense to develop
that others were lagging, and fears about the consequences began
building. There were extenuating circumstances in some cases, like
the economic slump in Asia, and many realized the problems would not
be as daunting as in the United States. But with time short, industry
groups like Global 2000 and a few countries began trying a variety of
tactics to accelerate Year 2000 preparations.

Still, many of those most familiar with the relative preparedness and
spending levels in many foreign countries wonder whether it will be
possible to figure out why things ended up going so smoothly.

Information was always hard to come by and hard to compare since
sources varied so widely in what costs they attributed to Year 2000
work. In general, foreign countries have not included labor costs in
their Year 2000 figures while the United States and Britain have, but
practices have varied widely.

Now that Year 2000 has arrived, the pressure to sort out such data is
disappearing rapidly.

Still, questions about the transition will not go away. What actually
happened might figure in insurance lawsuits because if courts were to
decide insurers were liable for the money companies spent to avoid
problems, the insurers would undoubtedly cite the success of laggards
and low spenders as a sign that budgets for American companies were
needlessly bloated.

More broadly though, comparing preparations and the results achieved
may shed valuable light on cultural differences in how technology is
set up and managed, according to Edward Tenner, author of "Why Things
Bite Back." That in turn could help society deal with problems like
global warming and the proper use of biotechnology. "We really need
to look at the sociology of computing in detail," he said.

I thought we were done by now with the diatribes from people who did
not have any personal responsibility for making sure that a
organization's programs etc. still worked in 2000 - obviously I was
wrong. I suppose the silliness is because the reality was serious but
far too boring for the evening news.
So - here's some of what needed to be fixed in NY State. The emergency
phones on the Northway failed diligently as of 12AM Jan 1, 2000. Not
fatal if your car is working well, but no fun at all if it dies at
1AM when it is about 12 degrees below zero (farenheit). The ones
in the stretch thru the Adirondack Mountains were were replaced the
middle of 2000, they left the lower half of the highway without them.
Paycheck systems, systems for keeping track of time accruals within
agencies, most fiscal systems and a number of hardware and software
components of Unix servers and mainframe computers had to be replaced
because they were tested and it was confirmed they would fail. Some
applications could have lasted until March 2000 due to a happenstance
of when they actually received their first year "00" date, but as of
that date most of those that were not remediated quietly collapsed.

I'm selfish I guess. I don't find it trivial that I and others would
not have received our paychecks, had our time correctly recorded for
retirement and social security purposes or been able to recoup work
related travel expenses. (We had a reliable car and I did little
skiing, so the loss of the emergency phones didn't personally trouble
me last winter.)

I don't know how Russia etc made it (did they?), but a cursory scan of
news suggests that little has worked adequately there for a lot of
years now. Failure seems to be the norm, with a black market economy
that is probably more robust than the official one. Right now a couple
of big sections of that region are freezing because utilities and/or
fuel delivery systems failed.

But if you are independently wealthy and pay cash to avoid
disruptions, I guess Y2K remediation would seem overblown...